


An Honorable Enemy

by Moon_Raccoon_exe



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Arguing, Assassin's Festival DLC, Depictions of Injuries Blood and Burns, Enemies to Lovers, Injured Character, Loqi is a Tsundere little bastard, M/M, Tropes because I can
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 02:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13424511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moon_Raccoon_exe/pseuds/Moon_Raccoon_exe
Summary: The Lucian Marshal, Cor Leonis, attends the Assassin's Festival held at Lestallum, secretly aiding his prince from the distance. After the Empire retreats, defeated, and while Cor is looking for Noctis and his friends, he stumbles upon the only Niflheimian that has yet not left the city.Cor stands before an agonizing Brigadier General Loqi, who offers him to end his life, and is surprised when Cor chooses otherwise.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE!
> 
> The story is HEAVILY inspired in a short doujinshi found on Pixiv you can see in this link: https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=65856161
> 
> I know nothing on Japanese, so I ignore what's going on in the Doujin, but it triggered the scenario for the fanfic, offering major changes while staying loyal to the main/axis idea.
> 
>  
> 
> First Corqi ever!
> 
> Mere self-indulgent story full of tropes because I can and wanted to.
> 
> There's no smut, sorry. :(
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoy!

Cor found him almost by accident.

He saw and knew about the entire issue with the Empire’s invasion in the Assassin’s Festival held at Lestallum. The prince and his retinue were oblivious to his presence, and he had not found the time to let them know he was there among the chaos, confusion, and having to run around to escape from the MTs and the brigadier general. Yet, despite not having announced his presence in the city, the Lucian Marshal helped during the attack, secretly getting rid of troopers so they would not reach the prince or become more troubles to him. 

Cor, like them, had gotten into one of the Assassin’s disguises everybody in town was wearing to go unnoticed. He was thankful that he could afford for a full white robe and not that other…revealing costume that the royal retinue had gotten. He felt silly, kind of stupid, but nobody seemed to glance his way twice, so he adapted to the clothing. The only difficult task about everyone wearing similar clothes was trying to find the prince and/or any of his friends. So, while looking for them, the Marshal focused on slaying MTs. He had gotten rid of one when he saw and heard the explosion nearby the entrance of the power plant. He was on a nearby roof when it happened, but not close enough to see or hear anyone; still, the explosion was characteristic of an imperial toy blowing up. He knew that noise very well. 

Which could only mean that the prince and his friends had succeeded and saved the day once more. Cor thought it would be easier to find them later if he returned to the festival, as he assumed the retinue would do. He walked through some streets, got distracted once watching some people walking along pipes, lost some time looking at people from under their hoodies searching for one of the four young men he was looking for, and grew nervous from spending too long among such a large and tight crowd. He exited, left the main zone of the festival and decided to round the city through some of the emptier streets. 

It was as he was walking through one of the streets that he heard some noise coming from an alleyway. Cor did not consider them alarming, but he still stopped in his way, trying to hear if this could be an MT that was approaching him or simply some man trying to be quit. He subtly opened the fingers in case he needed to summon his sword.   
But, instead of confident and/or metal steps, they were hesitant, dumb and irregular.   
And, a few seconds later, there was a louder mess of noises. Metal hitting the floor and a wall, a trashcan being thrown down, and a subtle whine. Like somebody had fallen.

Cor stood still, not glancing in the direction of the alleyway at first.  
It would be a lie to say it had not been in his thoughts, the question about the Niflheimian’s condition, if he had survived to the fight. He had thought about asking Scientia, the man that paid more attention to those details, and who seemed to judge people less than the other three. And not that the other three judged too harsh or too much, but Scientia was a hundred percent understanding about everything. He would understand it was only curiosity and not concern, the reason why Cor wanted to know about the Niflheimian’s condition. Because that was it; just…curiosity. 

He let some moments pass, as if expecting to hear the noises in the alleyway come back, and hear the steps continue. He heard some subtle metal noises, and another thud. Tried and failed to stand up.   
Cor saw, in the distance, the outstanding cockatiel hairstyle that could only belong to the prince’s adviser. He considered going to him after having searched for hours, but he still waited to make sure the noises in the alleyway came back.  
When they did not, Cor sighed and decided that if he could find Scientia once, he could do that again later. First, he had to listen to his morality that would not stop poking him in the brain until he turned on his heels and approached the alleyway, turning to look at it.

That was how he found him; almost by accident, majorly injured, and thrown in an alleyway. Defeated. _Again._  
The stupidly young Niflheim Brigadier General was half-sat half-thrown against one of the walls of the narrow alleyway, that was only wide enough for him to keep a leg stretched ahead and the other tucked up. Well…not like the young soldier was what one would say _tall_ , anyway. Loqi had the back against the wall, a hand gripping one of his sides, and the head down. He was conscious, Cor noticed, from the tight way he held his side, the way he panted shakily, and how horribly much he was trembling. Even from the yards in between, Cor could see the way he trembled. It was so much it was almost ridiculous, was it not due to this not being a laughing matter.

Loqi had yet not noticed his presence, busy in his physical pain. That was new; to stand so close to him, and still go unnoticed to the blond. Cor stared at him and started analyzing him to see how bad the prince and his friends had managed to hurt him.  
Well… _very_ bad, it seemed. The way his head hung and his huge armor did not let Cor see much, but his hand, gloveless, looked badly burnt; there were pieces of his armor that were missing, some that were broken, and parts where, besides no armor, the clothes had been torn; in the few places where he could see Loqi’s skin, he was either badly burnt or bleeding. He was dirtied in ashes and more blood, and he would not stop shivering like he was nude in the middle of a snow-covered mountain.  
Cor looked back at the crowd of the festival and considered leaving. The consideration lasted one second, before he turned to the alleyway again, and took a few steps closer to it. 

“I didn’t think you would survive at all” Cor said and Loqi flinched in his place, clearly taken off guard. The brigadier general turned in his direction, and Cor could not help a tiny pinch of…admiration inside when, instead of fearful, Loqi presented himself with a frown. He had not had time to think of what expression to make, it had been his natural reaction. And, majorly injured and with no chances to win even against a normal person, he still showed himself ready to offer a fight to his last breath. Stubborn, aggressive, reckless. Like Cor in his young days.

The thoughts, however, were clouded by bigger ones of realization when Cor had a clearer look of the Niflheimian’s face; the right side was badly burnt, like part of the neck, and even his eyelids looked slightly burnt. The mere sight was terrifying, like a little closer to the fire and his skin would have started to melt. His mouth bled like a cascade, he had a huge bruise that covered his temple and part of the forehead, and his hair was dirty with black ashes, and the little fringe that went upwards on the tips was a little soaked with blood that was halfway to getting dry. It was not bad. It was _terrible._ The boy would not live if he did not get immediate help.

After a few seconds, Loqi’s frown softened not as if recognizing a friend, rather as if not giving him importance. His expression softened again until he closed the eyes, smiled, and chuckled. The chuckle, despite it being a tiny and sarcastic laugh, was still accompanied by a little whine of discomfort and pain. Loqi turned from the Marshal to the wall opposite to him, eyes still closed.  
“…who would have thought?” the young soldier said with a voice that sounded tight, like every word was draining him. “Defeated by no other but the very same Lucian prince himself, and his stupid friends” he paused in his words to shift lightly in his position, a moan echoing in the back of his throat, and he sighed tremblingly, clearly in pain out of the mere action of breathing. “Me, a man trained so far I have memory into the arts of piloting, war, weapons and machines, the youngest brigadier general to have existed…” he tried lifting his free hand as if to gesture with it, but it dropped onto his lap and he exhaled through the mouth, eyes still closed. “…defeated by a…bunch of fools disguised in costumes of a childish videogame…right after I had… _all_ to my vantage…”

Cor did not reply. For a moment, the pause lingered so much that he thought Loqi had finally passed out, but the young man’s body had not untensed for a single moment. The tip of one of his feet twitched, and he seemed to be brought back to his senses.  
“…humiliated enough, and then _this”_ Loqi turned the head to the direction of the Lucian again, with a tiny smile decorating his face. He seemed to try to fight to open the eyes, but the eyelids fell shut again, softly. “None other but the very same Cor the Immortal himself…to offer me my _coup de grâce…”_ Loqi chuckled again, and threw the head back so it rested against the wall. “…how…ironic. To me, that is.”  
Cor offered no reply. This was strange; he had faced Loqi in many scenarios, and he had always defeated him, and each time Loqi barked at him to kill him as if it was a dare. And this time, he was just…accepting it. Bitterly, very bitterly, so bitterly that he found it funny in a disgraceful way, but accepting it.  
For once, he was not offering a fight. Cor was not sure if it was less or more worrying.

“…do you have access to your weapons, Leonis?” Loqi started asking him, smile gone and eyes still closed. “Or do I lend you something?”  
“Why is it that every time we meet you ask me to kill you, some or other way?” Cor asked him and started approaching again, entering the hallway. Loqi’s head turned slightly in his direction and he half-opened the eyes. They were full of tears of pain that, despite being at the brink of death, the general still refused to drop. “If you were so desperate to die, you’d have killed yourself already.”  
Loqi looked at him some moments as if he was further into the zone of death and could not listen clearly anymore. But, after some seconds, he sarcastically chuckled again and turned the head to face ahead again.   
“Perhaps I have the same curse than you…” Loqi whispered. “I don’t know how I haven’t died yet…”  
“That, I was about to ask you” Cor said. “I’ve seen two imperial machines blow up to ashes with you inside them. Yet, here you are. How?”

Loqi offered no reply at first. He shook the head weakly, not opening the eyes, and swallowed with difficulties.   
“…emergency system” the brigadier general murmured. “…they are designed…to…save the operator. In case of…you know…” Loqi sighed, barely making any noise. “…blowing up to pieces…”  
“Your emergency system doesn’t seem too…safe” Cor noted. “You’re agonizing.”  
“I said it could _save_ the operator” Loqi stated, a bit louder than before, but eyes still closed. “Not leave him unharmed.”

Cor stayed quiet again. Loqi was still trembling too much. Cor could see a bloodstain starting to grow from under the hand that Loqi kept on his side. The young man’s eyelids fluttered a little; he hissed and stared up through half-opened eyes, mouth open and trying to catch a breath. Even despite his stubbornness and pride, Loqi’s eyes started crying. The Marshal could almost hear the boy mentally cursing. He stood there quietly some more moments, watching the boy tremble and cry in a way that it made it look like Loqi was not conscious of the tears.  
“…I don’t know what you’re waiting for” Loqi whispered, closing the eyes. Cor still looked at him some more moments before sighing.  
“Me neither” the Marshal admitted in a whisper and got closer. 

When he did not feel the blow of a weapon and the Marshal getting closer than necessary, Loqi turned the head in his direction and opened the eyes, only to find the Lucian at his side, leaning down, and offering him a hand. The palm up; it was an invitation.  
“I’m currently out of potions” Cor murmured to him, “but I have some in-”  
“What?” Loqi interrupted and the realization of what Cor was doing seemed to bring him back to his senses; he opened the eyes fully again and frowned deeply. He looked like somebody had just spat on his face. “You’re offering-!? Like I need some-! Get away from me!”  
“Loqi-”  
“Don’t you call me- you don’t have the right-!” Loqi was complaining and muttering, and he raised his left hand to start trying to shoo the Marshal away, trying to smack and hit him. “Get your filthy hands off me, you- brute Lucian-!”

Loqi continued throwing the left hand side to side whenever the older one tried to get close to keep Cor away, muttering curses, insults and orders, while Cor, talking at the same time, tried to make him reason and calm down. Loqi, calm down, in presence of Cor. When he realized how stupid that sounded and how useless it was, Cor decided to stop the boy physically to make him listen. While Loqi continued trying to smack him, voice raising with every insult, Cor watched the hand and calculated, so that when he raised the hand and shot it quickly towards Loqi’s he managed to grab the young man’s wrist.

It had not been Cor’s intention to harm him; he had only meant to stop him, literally calling out ‘Stop!’ as soon as he got to grip the wrist. However, at the same time he did, Loqi’s eyes widened and he gasped in a half-choked whine. His hand flinched, and the young man collapsed to the side. His right hand still clumsily and out of reflex tried to move up to hit Cor’s arm so the Marshal would let go of him, but it only got to grab Cor’s arm for a moment, trembling, before the hand dropped like the man had suddenly died.  
Cor let go of his wrist as soon as he saw he had hurt him, watching Loqi thrown on the ground still trying to fight to stay awake. His trembling body tried to roll to a side, and Cor saw his eyelids fluttering, stubborn to stay awake, but he lost the fight against unconsciousness.

The first thing that Cor did after Loqi stopped moving was to check his pulse; it was weak, but it was there. Thank the Astrals, he had not accidentally murdered the man he was trying to help. He looked behind himself to make sure nobody was watching and misunderstanding the whole issue, and then looked back at the Niflheimian thrown in front of him, limp, unconscious, and majorly injured. Knocked out, he seemed to be in less pain. He still trembled, but not as much as before, and his breath calmed a little; the Marshal, however, was not sure this was a good sign. Loqi had difficulties to breathe, so that it sounded more calm was not exactly reassuring. Cor’s eyebrows furrowed a little, thoughtful; this boy was so injured he should have passed out minutes ago. In how much pain was he that a mere touch to the wrist knocked him out? It was incredible, how he was so stubborn that not even the natural responses of the body could win against him; he wanted to stay awake, he would stay awake despite what the body said, even if that meant having to overcome agony. 

Cor struggled a little with pushing him up to a sitting position again, resting him against the wall again. He could not carry with the young man, not in his stupidly big armor, even as ruined as it was. It was heavy and too much of an obstacle. He prayed to the Six that Loqi would not wake up while Cor took it off him, or he would never hear the end of the boy’s wrath from the misunderstanding, and started undoing belts everywhere.

Those fucking Niflheimian armors, so difficult to take off…


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good stuff and Loqi coming awake and the Corqi is all on chapter 3, fellas, I think you can feel free to skip this one. It's only Cor attending to a knocked out Loqi and a tiny exchange of words C:
> 
> Gotcha mate.

Cor took him to the room of the lodging house that he had rented for his stay at the festival.

The festival brought many people to the city, and the hotels were full. Thanks to the celebrations and the crowd that it brought along and the quantity of people struggling to find a hotel with vacancy, many houses and buildings opened little businesses as lodging houses for the tourists. To both save some gil and to go a bit more undercover, and because of how difficult it was to find a hotel room those days, Cor decided to rent a room of one of those, instead.

The woman in charge of the little ‘lobby’ room first gave him a frown of disapproval when Cor walked in with an unconscious man that looked like a teenager in his arms, bridal style. It made the Marshal uncomfortable, but he grew even more uncomfortable when the lady noticed that the ‘boy’ was not drunk, rather burnt and injured, and she got close to examine him and started panicking, saying they had to call some doctors. Cor had had luck going unnoticed, but he feared she could recognize Loqi; and if she did not, the doctors would for sure. The last that he needed were news and rumors of Cor the Immortal, from the Lucians, aiding General Loqi, from the Niflheimians. Either of them could be tagged of treason in the worst case, and in the best case, people would start praising him as a ‘merciful’ hero that showed to not be a heartless monster and saved an enemy despite being an enemy, while Loqi would be fired, probably still tagged of treason, and forever made fun of. Unnecessary scandals. 

Cor gently denied every invitation, lied and said there was already a doctor as his neighbor, and went upstairs with the burnt and bleeding general leaving one or two drops of blood on the stairs. Cor hurried subtly to his room and locked the door once inside. He made sure to be extra careful when he laid the young man on the bed; grabbing his wrist had knocked him out and now Cor knew exactly why, he could not treat him carelessly or anything would kill him. Once having let go of Loqi, he could hurry to his stuff and took out his only Phoenix Down. It seemed necessary…in the state he was in, maybe Loqi’s system would need more than a potion, even more than an elixir. Cor could use those healing objects thanks to the magic of the kings that Noctis had granted him (after Regis’ death), and while Loqi was not blessed with the Lucii magic, he could receive the effects of the Phoenix Down perfectly well if Cor gave it to him. 

After attending to some stuff that needed to be seen before and fearing that he was taking too long in those pre-medical necessities, after some struggle and staining the bedsheets and his own hands in more blood, Cor gently laid the Phoenix Down and it listened to his intentions; the feather touched Loqi’s chest before breaking into particles, some of which disappeared through the young man’s pores and some others that rounded him. Loqi’s body shivered gently in response at the immediate touch.

As the red gleam started circling him, Loqi quickly calmed down. The bruise on his head was fading, the wounds were closing, and the burnt skin was recovering at a quick pace. Cor watched the process until every wound had closed and every burnt had healed. It was amazing; he was aware of how bad his state was, but now that he was healing it was like watching him turn into a different man.  
The magic would cure the injuries, but it would not clean the mess; the blood that had cascaded down his mouth was still on his chin, as well as the blood of his side and other parts that he could see through holes on his clothes. Loqi wore very simple under the armor; long sleeved and high collar black pull-on shirt, and tight-enough-for-battle-but-loose-enough-for-comfort black pants. Funny and ironic for a Niflheimian, to dress the Lucian trademark color. 

The Marshal left to get a clean cloth that he soaked slightly in the bathroom. When he came back to the bed, the red gleam had disappeared. The general looked so, _so_ much better. He was not trembling anymore, his breathing was calm, and he had no open wounds or burns. If Cor ignored the clothes full of holes and the dry blood, it looked like the young man was merely asleep after an exhausting day. Even his skin had recovered color; instead of sickening pale, he looked warm, with cheeks very, very subtly pink, like a normal person. The Phoenix Down had even healed the part of his eyebrow and the eyelashes that were burnt, and they had grown back, he noted.  
Now that Cor was seeing, Loqi had kind of girly eyelashes; long and curved. With the eyes softly closed like that, the eyelashes looked as if they could almost rest on top of his roundish, teeny cheeks. At first, it was amusing. A few seconds into staring, realizing he _was_ staring, it turned to embarrassing and Cor forced himself to look away. 

He got close and brought the cloth up again, a little doubtful. At first, he hesitated and did nothing, still in that stupid fear that Loqi would wake up as soon as he touched him. It was rare and new, that Loqi did not try to push him off. He knew he was unconscious, but it was still rare. Cor was so used to always be fighting with him that his body had it for sure that as soon as he touched the general, he would start fighting back. It was what normally happened. He had never…touched him without an aggressive reaction. Or without an aggressive intention, if he was honest. Reminding himself over and over that Loqi was unconscious, Cor sighed quietly and gently pressed the cloth to his face. When Loqi did not react, the Lucian gained a bit more confidence and started cleaning him from the ash that covered his face like a second skin, the blood on a side of his torso, and continued with the one on his wrist. 

He had to get a second cloth when the first one ended up as if it had cleaned mud (dirty beyond repair) and he gave a second go on the general’s blood-stained face and body, wherever Cor could reach through the holes of his clothes. At times he still looked up to make sure Loqi was unconscious even though he already knew that and continued.  
It was while he was cleaning the general’s face when Loqi offered some reaction.  
Cor pressed the fresh cloth to his eyebrow and started cleaning, his hand going to a side to clean what had been the worst injury of his head, nearby a temple. Cor guessed that it was maybe how fresh the cloth had to feel against his skin now that Loqi had recovered his body warmth, or maybe he was not being gentle enough, but the Nif started coming awake. Cor tried to ignore him; from the awful state he had been in, it was a surprise he was coming to his senses in less than a night, but it was that same fact what made the Marshal know that if Loqi was coming awake it would only be to be knocked out again. He only had to resist a few seconds into this young man’s wrath before continuing his work.

The first thing that Loqi did while coming awake was, of course, taking in and letting out a deep breath. Cor stopped at his second reaction, taken off-guard, and his hand froze where it was on the side of Loqi’s face; the general suddenly leaned the face towards his hand, like a kitten asking their master to be pet or, more realistically, like a man that was coming to his senses and enjoyed of the treatment he was being given before he had even noticed what it was. The Lucian stayed frozen, staring at him, unsure of what to do with Loqi leaning the face slightly into his hand almost with gratitude; it was not too much or too insistent, but it was definitely the opposite to how he used to treat this Nif, or how the Nif used to treat him. It felt so surreal it was ridiculous.

Some seconds later, Loqi started opening the eyes. His eyelids seemed to want to force him back to sleep, just like he seemed to be forcing them open. They fluttered and struggled, and the imperial managed to barely open the eyes enough to see. That did not even count as half-open; he almost still had the eyes closed. Still, Cor could see tearful but thankfully not agonizing eyes. Loqi seemed to be lost at first, and then tried to focus his gaze on the Lucian. By the way he barely had the eyes open and how lost what little of his eyes could be seen looked, Cor would not be surprised if Loqi did not remember any of this when he would really come awake.  
He stayed quiet, fearing that maybe Loqi was more stubborn than logic and stubborn enough to force himself fully awake before it was time. If he did, Cor had no idea what to do; he had no explanation to this, none that Loqi would accept hearing before unleashing all his anger on the Marshal. And not like Cor feared him, but…he was already quite a challenge in a natural state, he could not imagine how angry Loqi would be if he came awake to see Cor the Immortal touching his face. 

Loqi still stared at him in silence some moments, with a tension that had it clear that he wanted to say something but was taking too long on it. After some waiting, his mouth, still dirty in dry blood, opened slightly.  
“…Caligo?” Loqi mouthed rather than said at all, too low, voice hoarse and mute, and eyebrows furrowing. He looked utterly confused. Cor ignored the first wave of absolute anger that overtook him at the name (let alone by being _mistaken_ for that _beast_ of a Nif) and tried to understand Loqi’s confusion; it could be that he either was not sure if this was the man he had called for, or if he simply could not believe Caligo would do something like this for him. They were on the same team, but Cor always had the sensation that there was something odd between both Nif soldiers. He had considered perhaps Caligo could be mean with Loqi, not out of Loqi’s behavior and only out of Caligo’s aggressive nature, but for Loqi to not _believe_ his own _ally_ would aid him, that spoke a lot. 

Cor ignored the pinch of sympathy and preferred to dip his emotions in what he knew better, disgust, simply because it was much easier to deal with than sympathy for the enemy. He looked at Loqi’s confused stare before exhaling softly through the nose and ignoring him, continuing to clean his ear.  
“Go back to sleep” even though it was an order, it did not sound like that. Cor had murmured it and it felt…soft. Loqi’s eyebrows did but pull a bit tighter against each other, trembling a bit from the effort of only making a facial expression.  
“Did I…” Loqi started whispering so lowly that Cor stopped cleaning him to put all his focus on the young man to really listen, or rather decipher what he was saying. Loqi swallowed. “…did I die?”

The Marshal stared at him in silence. Loqi was looking at him with a blank expression on his half-asleep self, eyes still barely open and full of tears that, nonetheless, did not fall. Now that he had been healed there was no pain, maybe only some discomfort, so the tears could not be a physical reaction. They came from somewhere deeper than the skin and the muscles. He still looked at Cor in absolute silence, quiet and not moving, and all that the Lucian could do for a moment was to stare at him.  
He was not sure what, but he was feeling it. It was similar to remorse, but not quite. Pity, but not quite. Something about realizing the fragility of life, and how someone so full of passion to the last fiber of his body, someone so, _so_ incredibly fierce could still fear death, while accepting it at the same time. 

He also thought about how _young_ Loqi was. No man should have to die in his early twenties. He was barely starting to learn from life to be taken from what little experience he had started to build. He wished, for a second, that this man had never been born in those times or under the name he received. No man in his early twenties had to ever _ask_ if he had died, let alone so…simply. Like he had been told all his life that he was going to live only to die, living to fight and fighting always led to death, that life had no other purpose but that of dying, like he had been told that life did not matter, that he was going to die young, so it did not surprise him. It was fucked up. War and what it did to the youth, it was all fucked up.

Cor contained a sigh in his chest.  
“Do you feel dead?” the Marshal asked him and let the question sink for a few moments. Loqi said nothing, only stared at him, and blinked once. Cor kept eye contact for a moment before he focused again on the blood-dirtied ear. “Then go back to sleep.”  
“The Immortal…”

Once more, Cor stopped and looked up at the general, thinking maybe Loqi had finally come a bit more awake and had recognized him. But all that he found was the same look on the Nif’s face; exhausted, much deeper into the asleep state than the conscious one, barely looking at him through tearful eyes. The Marshal hesitated and looked around the other man’s face for a moment, unsure of what to do or how to react, or what the Nif had meant. If Loqi had recognized him and had called for him, or if Loqi still though he was Caligo and he was informing him about the Immortal…informing him about what? That he was at Lestallum? Or was Loqi telling Caligo about how…about how it was thanks to Cor that he was not dead? And if so, how did he mean it? With surprise? Disgust? Maybe with gratitude…?

Cor thought about asking Loqi ‘what about him?’ to know the answers to all that, but he stopped as the first word was at the tip of his tongue and said nothing; he suddenly felt that it would have been abusing of Loqi’s post-agony state. It would not be right to know Loqi was seeing him as Caligo and take advantage of that to make him speak what he would not tell the Immortal. Instead of questioning him and swallowing the huge desire to, Cor looked away, exhaled through the nose once more, and looked at the younger man again. He put a hand to his forehead, feeling and messing a bit with the slightly ash-showered hair.  
“Go back to sleep” Cor ordered in a whisper for the third time. “Now.”

Whether it was due to his command, Loqi thinking it was Caligo, or maybe and most possibly simply Loqi’s exhausted state, the young man closed the eyes again and lost consciousness once more. He looked at Cor until his eyelids won the fight and closed, and his head moved slightly to a side. His chest moved up while he took in a deep breath, and he fell asleep, quietly, having dropped no tears. Cor sighed again, waited a little as if unsure of whether Loqi really was asleep or not, and then retook his cleaning on the general’s face.

After having cleaned his neck and his hands (stupidly soft for someone whose routine involved a lot of weapon training, he found under the only glove he had kept), Cor returned to the face. He cleaned the little spots he had missed in the first go, one of which he found right at the corner of his lips. Cor gently cleaned it, watching the way the corner of his mouth curved upwards according to the pressure that Cor applied to it. 

The Marshal got distracted when he discovered that silly little gesture. He was used to Loqi furiously barking in his face, and if he ever saw the general smiling that was with the eyebrows furrowed, always sarcastic, aggressive, or laughing like a psychopath. To see his face relaxed and the tiny curve that Cor could make his mouth do was new. The young blond looked…well, young. Like the young man he was meant to be, the kind to be playing those ‘childish videogames’, not a _general_ during war. And he looked…like a normal person. Someone to encounter at the market, to see staring at the horizon, to pose for a photograph in the beach. Not a soldier taken from his childhood and youth to be a weapon. 

Besides the thoughts of Loqi on a normal life, Cor noticed, while cleaning his mouth and keeping that little push-upwards on the corner of it, that Loqi had a very stupidly _pretty_ mouth. So pretty it was ridiculous. Now that they were clean and in their natural state, they looked almost feminine. Maybe, Cor thought for a moment, it was because of the slightly soaked cloth, but he remembered that each time they met his lips looked like this, so it really was their natural state; slender, so stupidly soft-looking, so agonizingly _soft_ looking, and even a little shiny as if he would put transparent chapstick on every ten minutes. Which was not the case; they were naturally like this. How did Loqi manage such healthy and stupidly pretty lips? Cor thought at first that it looked ridiculous; a teenage girl’s lips on the face of a fierce general made of fire, hatred and hurricanes.

But then again, it was not like they were too outstanding on him; Loqi too had a pretty face-

Cor took his hand and eyes away; again, he was staring. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. The gods damn, it was happening _again._  
It was no lie to himself, and not new, this… _attraction._ Ever since his first encounter with the young general, he had felt that stupid _attraction_. When they first met, both had turned to look at each other at the same time, as if both their brains had said ‘Him. That’s who you’re looking for’. Except the brains never specified what _kind_ of ‘who you’re looking for’ it was. And his first reaction, seen as they met on the battlefield, was to think that his brain meant as a target of war.  
But maybe he misunderstood his brain’s words. 

No. That was wrong in like five different ways and levels. 

Decided that Loqi could handle being a little dirty and as this was definitely troubling him, Cor left the cloth to a side and exited the room, decided to do as he had meant since he arrived to Lestallum, and went to look for the prince and his retinue. Part of him hoped that Loqi would wake up and leave before Cor returned, and part of him knew the general would sleep all through the rest of the evening and the night even if he tried to shake him awake.

He still could have tried, but didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you if you read through this bridge chapter!
> 
> I suck at keeping things short and it means lots that you still read it :')


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HE HAS AWAKEN.
> 
> UNLEASH THE TINY BLOND INFERNO.

Loqi’s senses came back to him slowly, like he had been asleep for an entire year.

The first thing he did while regaining consciousness was to take in a deep breath through the nose. It was still some seconds before he could make his eyelids obey and opened them a little, but had to close them again. Consciousness came forth and back, teasing him, trying his patience, until he grew exasperated from being asleep and this stupid slow process, and he started forcing himself awake.  
He managed to focus his sight after some blinking and after getting used to the scarce light that vaguely peered through the curtains. It did not make sense, the ceiling. He definitely was not dead, but this ceiling was unknown; it was not typical for a hospital, neither Lucian or Niflheimian, and it was definitely not the interior of an aircraft, or any room he knew. If this _was_ the afterlife, it sucked. 

He closed the eyes again, a bit uncomfortable, and softly exhaled through the nose, rolling onto his side without noticing. His fingers curled slightly, and he felt a soft fabric underneath and around them. Hating to be asleep in he-had-no-idea-where, Loqi forced himself awake once more, a little more conscious this time. The first thing he saw was his hand resting in front of his face on a…pillow. Confused, the general moved up on the bed, a hand coming to rest on his forehead at a very slight headache from the sudden movement, and he became a little more lucid.  
Ah. Of course. The fight, his mech blowing up. Again. His failed plans. Trying to make his way through Lestallum’s dirty alleyways to return to the little campsite of the empire, and failing to do even something as simple.

That was all he processed in his head and his reflex was to go to the campsite. He pushed the sheets off his body, eyes closed trying to fight against the last hints of sleep and unconsciousness, and he sat on the edge of the bed, dropping his legs off the mattress.  
It was when he felt the floor underneath his fingers that he opened the eyes and looked at his feet. He was barefoot. Actually, he did not have his armor, where was his- and where was him and how did- and why-?  
As soon as he remembered, he swallowed a gasp before he could do any other sound, flinching and eyes flying wide, and he looked up.  
Arms crossed and head hanging low, Cor the Immortal slept sat on a chair nearby. 

And it was only then that Loqi remembered everything; his encounter with the Marshal, however and whatever words he had mumbled at him during his agony, and then the Lucian doing the stupid, senseless, offensive offer to help him. As he remembered and stared at Cor with shock and almost a bit of terror, Loqi understood and processed it; this was _all_ his doing. Cor took him there, and he healed him.  
How _dare_ he!?  
Loqi, still in shock, only grew more surprised and stared down at himself; it was Cor who took his footwear off too, and his clothes- what had happened to his clothes!? They were full of holes and ripped open like some behemoth had toyed with them with the claws. Loqi swallowed another gasp when he saw a long if thin stripe of his shirt falling off his chest diagonally, barely hanging from a few threads, and his reaction was to cover it again like a damsel losing the bra unexpectedly. He felt embarrassed at his own reaction, and even more embarrassed that his reflex had been to look up at the Marshal to make sure he had not seen. 

Loqi became red in the face in embarrassment, and the embarrassment only made him angry at himself, being angry at himself made him angry at the Marshal, and he was soon burning red in mere wrath, glaring and frowning at the man that slept on the chair. 

Angered, Loqi stood up and stormed his way towards Cor and stopped in front of him. Once there, he had no idea what to do. His mouth opened and shut multiple times as if he wanted to scream but had no idea what, his hand raised and lowered unsure of what do grab or where to hit, and he looked around in panic. When he realized he was still covering his chest, he growled in anger remembering that it was stupid, let go, and used his free hand to raise it so high and back that he felt discomfort in his own shoulder, only to get speed and force when he threw the hand down and towards the Marshal’s face, and slapped him as hard as he could on his right cheek.

Shook awake, Cor immediately opened the eyes and tried to make sense of what was happening, a hand covering the spot where he was hit and head turning so he could focus his sight on the angered blond in front of him, looking at him in shock. Loqi was looking at him with great, burning anger, but his face glowed red like a moogle’s pompom, and honestly Cor had no idea what any of that meant. He saw Loqi raise the hand again, but Cor stopped him by the wrist when the Niflheimian tried to slap him again.  
“What are you-!?”  
“That was…!” Loqi started, like he tried to sound angry but he was more embarrassed than anything, and snapped his hand away from Cor’s so roughly it was almost violent. “…for…for…raping me, you- old- sick, perverted-!”  
“Rapin- what are you talking about!?”  
“-brute and disgusting-!”  
“-if you could, for a moment-!”  
“-how _dare_ you touch me!?”

Both men started arguing in yells, one confused trying to shut the other and the other yelling curses and insults while trying to smack and slap. Both continued to argue, and Cor felt the necessity to stand up, not to defend himself but because it felt stupid to stay sat while arguing this loudly and hotly with someone.  
When he came to his feet, he suddenly realized the mistake he had done…when he had to drop the head to look at the Niflheimian. Loqi was not even trying; he immediately shut up and was staring at Cor’s chest like his eyes were there.  
Both stood in awkward silence. Thick, uncomfortable and very sudden silence that almost felt physical and kept them in tension. 

Some seconds later, Loqi threw the head back to look at him to the eyes, still frowning.  
“This is ridiculous!” he barked, and Cor was not sure what he meant but he agreed. The blond turned on his heels and stormed away some steps, only to give his back to the Marshal and to cross the arms. “Where are my shoes!? Where is my armor!?”  
“It’s everything in that corner” Cor replied loudly, almost about to yell, and pointed at said place even though the other was not looking at him. “If that’s all you wanted you could have looked around, there was no need to- smack me or get this riled up.”  
“I am _not_ riled up!” Loqi turned to look at him only to scream that, before storming his way to the corner that he had already seen while Cor had been talking. When he got there and picked up a few pieces of his armor and stared at it, he growled and continued yelling. “Why is my armor all fucked up!? What did you do to my armor!? What did you do to my _clothes!?”_  
“It was not me, you _exploded_ in your own mech!” Cor yelled back at him, before he groaned with exasperation and headed to the small mirror nearby. “There’s new clothes for you in the bathroom, just put them on and _leave.”_

“Oh, so you went _shopping_ for me, how nice!” Loqi yelled back with sarcasm, opening the door to the bathroom so violently Cor could swear he could hear the wood crack as if ready to break, and the blond stormed his way inside. He looked at his own face in the reflection while Loqi grew quiet in the bathroom, and examined his cheek; while it was fading, he had Loqi’s palm literally marked in red on his face. He could make out some of the fingers if he looked closely. Cor hissed at the pain of the sensitive skin but closed the eyes and tensed when the blond started yelling again. “I don’t like these clothes!”

Cor only rolled the eyes and went back to the chair. There was no sense in telling Loqi the clothes were the same than the ones he was wearing except new; he would complain about something else. He dropped himself on the chair and caressed his temples, sighing and trying to calm down. He was a man that used to stay cool and silent most of the time, but if there was one person on this planet that could make him angry to the point of making him argue and _yell_ , that was Loqi, the tiny jerk. He could hear Loqi grumbling and muttering more curses and nonsense, and watched as, from the open door, pieces of torn clothes flew out and landed on the floor. For a moment he thought between amused and exasperated if this was how Loqi undressed everyday, with the same passional anger which seemed to be his natural state and tossing clothes into the air like they were the reason of all his miseries.

Some moments later, Loqi emerged from the bathroom, dressed in the new clothes and hair slightly soaked (most surely from water from the sink), and approached his destroyed armor again.  
He wondered if the Marshal had carried him with all of his armor. Well, the Marshal was very strong, so he could lift Loqi in his armor just fine if he tried. He was much stronger than what he looked, and sometimes stronger than Cor himself knew. And did he look strong already, with those muscular arms and that wide chest.  
Not like Loqi had noticed. 

The idea of the Marshal taking his armor off him, whether before or after carrying him, made Loqi stay oddly silent and feel his face burn. There was something about that, and Loqi tried to picture it; Leonis, undoing the belts one by one, and removing all that metal off him, leaving him…strangely exposed like Loqi was not used to be, not in front of thousands, and certainly never in front of the Marshal. He felt nervous at the mental image and tried to toss it aside, but the thought was followed and shadowed by the idea of the Marshal carrying him.  
There was something even bigger about the idea of Cor picking him in arms so easily and so lightly-

Loqi buried the face in his hands and thought at the speed of light to come up with something to justify that action and hide what he really was feeling, which he did by growling into his palms, and he turned roughly towards the Marshal again.  
“Look at my armor, it’s fucking useless now!” Loqi yelled at him, stood up and kicked a small piece of metal. “I’m not wearing that!”  
Cor did not reply. He was just sat there staring at some wall like it was the most interesting painting in the world, so long he did not have to look in the Niflheimian’s direction. Loqi found it insulting and yelled about it, but Cor ignored him again. Loqi still insisted to scream about how he was not going to put the armor on but how he did not want to leave it there for Cor to do “who knows what sick things” to it either, and proceeded to rant about his boots because _where were his boots and the few inches of height they offered!?_

While he looked for his boots or at least the simple footwear he wore underneath (the boots were part of the armor, not real clothing), and after looking up after he searched in vain under the bed, Loqi went quiet when he saw some plastic container that had a lot of metal shards of all sizes and shapes in it. The bottom of the container was pooled with blood, and all the metal pieces were painted in dry red as well. It took him only a few seconds before he understood what those were.  
The mech blowing up meant thousands, millions of metal pieces flying around at high speed. It was like a million bullets being shot at the same time. And Loqi had been in the core of the mech when those were shot. 

He was aware that he had had many of them piercing his body in different spots, like hell he had been conscious of it. There had been a small but still sharp one piercing his left wrist; Cor had grabbed it unaware of that fact, and it only helped to intensify the pain of the shard in his skin to the point of knocking him out from mere pain. One of them had pierced through his calf until the tip came out from a different hole; he had many tiny ones on different spots of his body, and the injury of his side had been pierced by a particularly big and sharp one, which he could easily recognize among the other dozens of metal shards in the plastic container. 

Of course. It would be senseless to use the healing magic of the Lucian kings to close the wounds if there was still something inside them.  
Loqi remembered, vague, blurry and very distant; little visions, of him squirming in the bed, screaming, once having been able to open the eyes but having fallen unconscious almost immediately afterwards again, consciousness coming forth and back depending on how bad the pain got. All because somebody had been pulling the hundreds of shards out of him, one by one.  
He also could remember…but it was too vague and he preferred to think those had been more a dream than reality, the little and even shy apologies each time the pain shook him awake…  
He thought about turning to look at the Marshal by mere reflex, but he controlled himself. It was obvious who had done it and why. It would be unnecessarily intimate if he shared a glance with the Marshal, and Cor could mistake it by a ‘Thank you’ glance, and _that_ Loqi did not want. 

Now that he noticed, nothing hurt. There was minor discomfort on some spots where he had had the worst injuries, but there was not a single bruise on him, and not a single hint that he had burnt half of his body and bled from the other half. The Immortal, more than saving him from dying, had fully healed him.

He stayed quiet, knelt in front of the bedside table, head down. He tried to stay angry, and it was, ironically, the fact that he could not stay angry what helped him to be angry. Some moments later, he spotted his footwear close and started putting them on despite the lack of socks. He mentally cursed that the shoes did not have the same height than the boots, but there was nothing he could do about it. Out of the mere wish of annoying, he smacked the lamp to drop it, conscious that Cor was paying for the room and hence would have to pay for the broken things, and started making his way to the door.  
The Marshal had said nothing since that last instruction of where to find new clothes. He had done nothing, either, just sat there the entire time looking other places, frowning. 

Loqi stood nearby the door but stopped there, as if waiting for Cor to say or do anything or to at least glance his way. The general stayed quiet and subtly looked at him waiting for that reaction that never came. The fact that he was being ignored made him angrier and he growled again, turning to face the Lucian. He thought that speaking first would smash his pride, so he turned again to the door, but then thought that not speaking would make him look like a child so he looked again at the Marshal.  
“I demand an explanation” while it had been rude, it had not been a yell, and for that Cor was mentally grateful. The Lucian turned his way and gave him a glance, but said nothing. Still, the question was clear. Loqi shrugged the nose up as his frown deepened and he raised the chin.  
“Because I am _exhausted_ of hearing you yell at me” Cor said.  
“What? No, not an explanation of why-” Loqi sighed angrily. “You know what I mean.”

When the Lucian offered no reply, Loqi took a few steps closer to him, as if making it clear he was ignoring the door until Cor satisfied his question.  
“Why did you help me?” Loqi asked him, still frowning.  
“Why shouldn’t I?” Cor asked back, much lower and serious than before. The fact that he did not sound angry and sounded rather…emotionless made Loqi’s own anger cool down, more in some sort of fear he could not explain rather than real peace.  
“Because you’re the enemy” the Marshal smiled and sarcastically chuckled in a tiny snort; he liked how Loqi worded it. It was not ‘I am the enemy’, rather the opposite. “You’re Lucis and I’m Niflheim. You’re Leonis, and I’m a Tummelt. We’ve been fighting every time we meet for the past four years. I almost blow your prince into pieces, and you’ve almost teared me limb by limb” Loqi said and even though the words had no beauty to themselves, the way he phrased it, maybe the musicality to it, something made Cor think of them as slightly poetic. He stayed quiet while Loqi stared at him, confused and trying to look angry. “You had no reasons to aid me. Why did you?”

“It’s called showing mercy” Cor told him, his trademark frown present. “Maybe you Nifs have never heard of it.”  
“It’s not ‘showing mercy’, it’s madness” Loqi replied, raising the chin a little more. The fact that Cor never showed any facial expression other than that grumpy look made the general stiff and angrier every time they met. “It was not your fight. It was not you who defeated me. Had the Lucian prince done it, it _would_ have been so. Yours was a senseless and pointless act of… _kindness”_ Loqi said the last word as if it was somewhere between disgusting and unknown. “I will demand my _real_ explanation only once more.”

It took some moments. Cor only either looked at him or to the wall as if reflecting about it, and the general did not move from his spot, frowning at the older man. After a long pause, Cor sighed and pushed himself off the chair and onto his feet.  
“Precisely because it was not our fight” Cor said, calmly. Loqi’s eyes traveled around his face as if trying to see the lie or further explanation. “It was not the result of the Marshal and the Brigadier General fighting; all that you were to me yesterday was a man that tried with all his might, still failed because that’s part of trying, and even in the brink of agony still refused to die without offering a fight first” sort of like himself during his teen years, Cor realized, but did not say aloud in the thought that it would sound selfish. He stared at Loqi almost as if to see if he had somehow read his thoughts, but all that he found was the general’s frown softening a little more, not calm but rather thoughtful. “To die slowly in the dirt among bags of trash. That’s not the way the Brigadier General Loqi Tummelt should die, or one that I would believe from him.”

There was a small pause, in which Loqi looked slightly away. After that, the blond one smirked to himself and chuckled sarcastically.  
“So you saved me in some sort of ‘He dies by my hands and not any other way’, hm?” Loqi asked between playful and serious. “Pretty selfish, are we?”  
“I saved you” Cor stated, voice a little louder at first, but decreasing as he continued, “because I think you’re worth it.”

This took Loqi off-guard and he did nothing to hide the way his expression transformed from that sarcastic smile to absolute confusion and some surprise. He stared at the Lucian in silence, as if unsure of whether he wanted to hear more about that or not. Cor, seeing the question in his eyes only growing, sighed subtly through the nose before speaking.  
“You’re the youngest brigadier general to have earned the title, and it was not due to favors or your name; it was hard work, recklessness, stubbornness, and a fierce passion, all born from one thing” Cor took a few steps closer to him; Loqi tensed and did not take the eyes off Cor’s like who tries to not show submission before a giant beast, but did not step away. “Your sense of ethic. I do not agree with the Empire, but you do, you understand the purposes and goals, and you fight for your country, your moral, what you think is right, and for the good of your people.”

Instead of getting closer, Cor stood there with a polite and noticeable distance between the two. There was a pause in which he saw Loqi trying to hide the confusion under fake anger, but staying quiet as if expecting to hear more.  
“There are people like Caligo who fight for the pleasure of causing others brute pain and senseless torture” Cor said more lowly, eyes squinting lightly as if to give emphasis to his words. “People like him don’t care about what’s right and wrong, they only want an excuse to torture others; they don’t care about the consequences of war, so long they get to murder innocent old men and scared little children” Cor continued. “They don’t care about who or what they’re fighting for; they only want to cause havoc” after that, Cor crossed the arms and his voice went a notch up in volume. “If they sent them to cause mass murder, they would not hesitate. You, on the other side, would not make a single move until you have been told what for, why, and what the purpose is. You measure if it’s wrong or right, if it’s for a greater good or not, and then you make a decision on free will to act or not.”

Loqi’s eyes went down for a few seconds, and, almost as if realizing that he had never done that in front of the Marshal, they quickly went up again as if fearing Cor had noticed. The Marshal said nothing about it and gave the younger man some moments to understand before continuing.  
“You’re not a violent savage like others, either Lucian or Nif. You’re not a bad person. You’re just…playing the role they gave you, and you just happen to see things from the opposite side of the balance” Cor said softer than before and uncrossed the arms. “I don’t agree with the side of moral you’ve chosen, but you _have_ a sense of morality, and it’s objective, wise and thought-through” Cor sighed and looked away as if not believing he was about to say those things, but not stopping himself either. “You may be wrong, but you’re an honorable soldier. And a very honorable enemy.”

The general was barely frowning by this point. He was looking at Cor with some mixture between confusion and some sort of softness. That was even weirder to Cor; at least, when he had thought about Loqi not frowning for once he had been unconscious. That the young man was not frowning while conscious…it was new, sort of frightening, and some sort of delight to see. After a pause while the general said nothing and only looked at him, Cor thought he needed to say something else.  
“That’s why I think you were worth a second chance” Cor said in almost a murmur. “It’s rare to find an honorable enemy. And it would be a shame to lose him this way.”

Loqi still looked at him with confused but calm eyes that scanned his face as if waiting or expecting for the Marshal to burst into laughter in any second. He frowned after the pause lingered too much, as if urging him to laugh already, and his frown faded again after that second half of the silence had lingered too much as well.

The Niflheimian looked at the older man, for only one second, as if hurt, but then he looked away, calmly. The fingers of one of Loqi’s hands nervously curled, as if unsure of how to reply, and he then crossed the arms.  
“I’m not sure if your kindness makes of you a stupid man, Leonis” Loqi said and, for once in his life, Cor heard him speak softly and calmly, no hint of anger. The general did not glance his way. “But it does make of you a valuable soldier, and a great human being.”

Cor blinked and his expression transformed entirely into that of surprise. He was usually fast to anticipate his reactions and hide them, but that took him entirely defenseless. He was prepared for an aggressive comeback, for silence, for anything and everything _except_ that. Loqi complimenting him back. It was surreal, and for a moment Cor was not sure if it was only a strange dream result of the discomfort from sleeping all night on that chair. He stayed silent, watching Loqi standing there, arms crossed and looking to a side.  
The Marshal thought the younger man would have a sarcastic smile, or a frown, or a blank expression. But, for the first time since he knew Loqi, and in a scenario where the young Nif was not agonizing, what Cor saw in him could almost be tagged of…sadness. The look on the blond’s face was so simple that it was incredibly complicated; mostly blank, but the gaze speaking for everything else. Like he was upset, tried to pretend he was not, was aware he could not hide it, and tried to pretend he had not failed to pretend, all at the same time. And the core of it, some sort of sadness.

While Cor was trying to decipher or understand it, the general contained a sigh in the chest and finally turned to look at him.  
“It’s truly a shame you were not born and raised in Niflheim, Marshal Leonis” Loqi told him keeping eye contact for a moment, eyes going down, and returning to lock with Cor’s. He had a serious and firm look upon the face once more, like he had never once let go of his frown and had only softened it.  
Cor could offer no reply for a moment. This side of Loqi was entirely unknown to him, and completely new. He had no idea the young man had this depth of a maze of emotions, but it did not surprise him. Loqi had always been full of surprises. Never ones as delightful as this that Cor was finding out, but always full of surprises nonetheless. 

The Marshal, for a moment, grew awkward. He was not used to compliments, not ones that did not speak about his ‘Immortality’ or that seemed vague. He was into the introvert scheme, something very few people knew, and had never known how to handle a compliment. Let alone from the only one person he could never even imagine doing it. So, for a moment, all that Cor did was look away and offer the ghost of a smile, a bit nervous.  
He hated that Loqi could cause all of this in him. He was the only man that could exasperate him to the point of starting to yell, and, apparently, he was now also rubbing into Cor’s unspoken shyness. His two weakest sides, and Loqi had already poked both in less than an hour.  
The bastard…

Cor contained a tiny and subtle sigh in the chest, and then blinked, eyes down, thoughtful.  
“…believe me, general Tummelt” he started in a murmur, but loud enough so the younger man could hear him, “when I tell you that it’s a much greater shame that you weren’t born in Lucis.”

He could see Loqi give a blink of surprise, and he gave the older man a confused look, the same one that seemed to expect him to start laughing, but it disappeared in a second. The blond looked at him with a blank expression, as if unsure of how to react and hence offering nothing.  
Cor continued to look at him with that ghost of a smile on his lips and, some seconds later, he could see the corner of Loqi’s mouth curve slightly up. It almost looked unnatural, like Loqi’s face had been made to either stay blank or frown, but it did not look bad. Cor could not help but widen his own smile, aware of what had made the younger man smile besides the compliment.

It sounded so…stupid, put that way. Lucis, Niflheim.  
Did it really matter where one came from?  
The idea that they were enemies only due to the place they were born in, it suddenly felt so primitive, so stupid. Why did something so…trivial define their entire lives, courses and goals and allies and…enemies?  
How different would…things be had they been born in the same country?

After a moment into that silent accomplice philosophy, both broke eye contact at the same time as if realizing what was going through each their heads.  
“Usually, when a brigade general or another high ranked soldier goes lost during a mission…” Loqi started, a little hesitant as if his voice walked on a tight rope, unsure but trying to fake everything was in order. He cleared his throat and looked at Cor again, the hint of smile gone and his cold-as-ice expression back on like a mask “…the soldiers are commanded to thoroughly search the area for at least two days” he gave a half-nod towards the Marshal. “You will understand I should be taking my leave before one of my men can find us in this…” he looked at Cor from head to toe, taking in a short breath of air that he let out when he made eye contact again. “… _compromising_ misunderstanding.”  
“Of course” Cor replied lowly, and took some steps ahead.

The general tensed and froze thinking the Marshal was coming towards him, all kind of senseless and stupid thoughts crossing his head and petrifying him in his place. When Cor walked past him and towards the corner where Loqi’s torn armor laid, the general felt his own face burning crimson red at the fleeting and idiotic ideas he had had for a second, and tried to force himself to be calm. By the time he turned to look at the Marshal, the older man was already coming back to him with a little piece of cloth in his hand. Cor stood in front of him, just staring. Loqi stared at his hand and then up at him, questioning.  
“Niflheim’s didn’t, but…” Cor raised his hand and showed the little red cloth to the younger man, who looked down at it. “Your House’s emblem survived to the fire. You don’t want to leave without it.”

Loqi stared at the emblem that usually hung at his hip or on a corner of the bigger one of the Empire that hung on his right shoulder. It usually went unnoticed; he had no idea the Immortal could recognize the emblem of his House, let alone know that Loqi carried with it.  
“Of course…” Loqi said with a mixture of emotions that Cor could sincerely not read, and watched the younger man raise the hand. Loqi’s fingers twitched lightly when they were on top of Cor’s palm without touching it yet, and seemed to pause, hesitating. It felt… _wrong_. Normally, Cor would not let this man so close, and Loqi would grab and shove him away at this distance. Their hands touching, even if just through the cloth, even if only one second, it felt like…like becoming allies of sorts. Wrong, treason to both their countries, and senseless. 

After a nervous pause, Loqi took the cloth and tried to not make a big deal out of it, ignoring the way their hands brushed each other for a fleeting second, ignoring the idea that none of them had, for once, tried to break each other’s wrist.  
They stayed quiet. The Nif was looking at the cloth in his hand, without really looking at it. Cor looked at either the young man’s face or to his hand, the first to try and figure what he could be thinking about, and the second to see if any of what was in Loqi’s head had anything to do at all with the emblem that he looked at for such a long while. 

After a long silence, Loqi closed the eyes and tightened the fist around the red banner, turning the head slightly to a side and taking in a sharp breath, as if forcing himself out of his head. Cor let him, and only waited.  
“I have no idea how to bid goodbye in this…new scenario” Loqi said looking up at him. Cor felt a pinch inside when he realized how pretty those pale irises were. “So I won’t.”  
Loqi offered one of his tiny sarcastic and rather cocky smiles, and turned on his heels. Cor had focused so much in that one second in which he could look at the younger man’s ridiculously and stupidly _pretty_ eyes that he could not help to feel a little startled when Loqi turned around and started heading to the door. 

Cor looked in silence. Loqi was a strong man, but Cor was so used to see him in a big and buff armor all the time that he looked skinny and much taller than he really was without those. He was slender and strong, and still short, but the impression was that of a much lighter, maybe even flexible young man. He had a gracious way of walking, maybe a little stiff, but gracious and a bit attractive. He had a very nice body shape, and he looked terribly good in black, contrasting against his blond hair and fair skin.  
He had no more chances to keep looking at him when Loqi had already opened the door and walked out, closing it behind him. 

The Marshal only had time to stare at the door, think a little, contain a big sigh in his chest, and look over his shoulder at the abandoned armor when he heard the door being opened again.  
Opening it much more roughly than necessary, Loqi walked back in, storming his way towards the Immortal. It was stupid, how calm he had walked out and how he immediately came back in looking completely different, like someone had activated his “Full Rage” mode with only one button. For a moment, Cor’s first reaction was to pull out his katana in self-defense, but he controlled himself and only stayed alert.  
Instead of throwing himself at the Lucian like expected, Loqi stopped in front of him, frowning intensely, glaring up at him, and opened the mouth as if ready to scream anything. Cor waited for the young man to yell anything, but Loqi did not; his mouth stayed open and his jaw moved slightly as if a divine force was stopping him from talking and still he tried.

Not having said anything, Loqi closed the mouth and pulled his chest up as if offended, turned on his heels and stormed his way out again, slamming the door shut.  
Cor blinked, confused and a little startled. He was surprised the Nif had not attacked him. For a moment, Cor feared he would do; not because of the attack itself, but because that would speak of Loqi’s true intentions and…  
The Marshal sighed shortly and shook the head in rapid and short movements.

Before he could relax for real this time, the door suddenly flew loudly and quickly open again, slamming against the wall, and Loqi stood there once more, looking absolutely furious, and once more stomped his way towards the Lucian like a beast blinded in animal anger. It reminded Cor a lot of Clarus’ passed wife who, when upset, was so fierce and had so much wrath that all Kingsglaives would run away at her mere glance. By mere reflex, as soon as Loqi walked in and shot daggers at him through the glare alone, Cor took a step back and tensed fully, feeling his heart skip a beat out of the sudden terror.  
Once more, Loqi stood in front of him only one step of distance and glared up at him, so furious that his face had turned slightly red. 

And, once again, Loqi tried to say something, but his mouth failed. It only opened and his jaw trembled again, making him open and close the mouth, the words stuck in his throat. Cor stayed still, staring down at the younger man trying to say something. Loqi then he raised a finger to point at him as if prepared to start nagging or to threaten, and Cor waited in tension for whatever wrath Loqi had to unleash on him.  
After a moment, however, Loqi quickly put the hand down again and he loudly and literally growled, like a child in tantrum, and one of his feet stomped on the floor, exasperated, before he turned around and stormed his way out the room, slamming the door shut again.

Cor blinked in absolute confusion and some shock; well, now _that_ was possibly one of the angriest levels he had seen in Loqi, but for once the general was not saying anything during his wrath.  
Cor was starting to worry of what the other people in the building would think. The walls were thin, so it was clear that all the previous discussion had been heard in at least this and the upper and lower floor, what with how much Loqi adored to yell at his face. Like it was not embarrassing enough to have had Loqi yelling about Cor ‘raping him’, now there was the constant slamming of doors. On second thought, however, everyone had to be away for the Festival, so that was a point to his favor-

Before he could fully put the guard down again, the door flew open once more. This time, Cor was expecting it a little more so it did not take him too off-guard. When he walked in, Loqi violently slammed the door shut and stormed his way towards the Marshal, looking as furious as the first two times. Part of Cor, expecting for the Nif to raise his hand to slap him like he had done earlier, reminded him that this man was left-handed and got prepared to stop him. 

It was both of Loqi’s hands that moved up when he stood in front of the Marshal, but they did not smack his face.  
Gently tugging from the collar of his shirt, not the jacket, Loqi pulled him down at the same time he stood full on his tiptoes and tilted the head to a side, eyes closed, and he softly pressed his mouth to Cor’s.  
The action of pulling him down itself would not have done much, but it was not necessary, as it was only an invitation and it had been Cor who leaned down himself as soon as he felt the tiny gesture, because part of himself already knew this was to come.

It was absurd, the contrast of Loqi’s actions; how violently he had controlled the door, how furious he had walked in, and how soft he had pulled from Cor’s clothes and how gently he laid his lips on him. It was not a peck on the mouth like a scholar; it was gentle, but it was a full kiss, where Loqi’s lips tasted Cor’s lower one and let go only to catch it again from another angle, and the tip of the tongue sometimes joined at times, hesitatingly but not shyly poking at the Marshal’s lips. While it was not rough or heavy, the kiss was in no way timid at all, or too slow. While lacking of obscenity and the hint of lust, it was _full_ of passion from Loqi’s side, and it did not take Cor off-guard; Loqi was a man full of passion that he used to focus on war, but when he focused it as a lover…gods. It was amazing. And very difficult to resist.

Not helping it, Cor gave out a breath mid kiss and let his arms sneak around the general’s waist. Loqi was in no way a skinny teenager; he was a muscular man, but he was still incredibly slender. One of his arms rounded the waist fully and the other hand laid flat on Loqi’s back; the contact made a tiny and subtle moan echo in the back of the general’s throat, and he deepened the kiss motivated by the hug and contact, letting go of his collar to round his neck with both arms, one of his hands moving to caress Cor’s scalp under his short hair, mouths not breaking apart and opening fully against each other. 

After a while, Loqi’s calves grew tired from the tiptoe position but, stubborn, he refused to break the kiss and ignored the muscle ache. As if fighting his legs, he hugged Cor closer by the neck as if, should his legs fail and break, he had an anchor not to fall. Cor felt the way Loqi practically wanted to hang from him and leaned down a bit more so the Nif could be more comfortable, pulling him closer until their bodies were pressed together. They continued to kiss until lips were not enough, and both their tongues sneaked from of their hideouts, decided to stop tasting with the tip and decided to fully explore the unknown territory of each other’s mouth, and entwined together. Cor felt a little ashamed of the sounds their mouths were making, but he, for once in his life, found it impossible to refrain and stop. Loqi’s lips were as stupidly soft and smooth as they looked, like a pair of beautiful thighs rubbing against each other, and, needless to say, they were as hypnotizing as a sweet drug. 

After a moment into the kiss and lips starting to ache from the make-out that was still on the go, Loqi accidentally groaned lightly into the Marshal’s mouth and he gently buried the teeth on Cor’s lower lip, which made the Marshal tremblingly exhale in return and his fingers curled into Loqi’s shirt, but as much as had been triggered, it also triggered refrain in both of them. Loqi cursed under his breath, mouth still on Cor’s, put one of his hands on the Lucian’s chest, and took half-a-step back, lowering the head. Cor, aware of where this had been heading, threw the head slightly back and opened the eyes, as if praying for strength, and he removed his hands from the younger man’s back to his waist, as if he had tried to let go but they were stuck in there. Loqi too had let go of the hug of his neck, but his hands stayed on the Marshal’s chest and shoulder. 

The general was staring down, breathing slow and a bit more loudly than normal, catching his breath. Cor too had a few troubles with it, and both spent a moment in silence. The pause grew and grew, and it was Cor who moved first, only to look down at the younger man. Now that Loqi was not on his tiptoes and was not wearing his armor boots, and this close, he seemed stupidly short. For some reason, the idea only made Cor close the eyes again and mentally count to not do some stupidity and to refrain his sudden impulses.  
Not even mid-battle had his instincts taken over him. War was a matter of staying cold in the head and not lose it, and he had mastered it long ago, could stay calm in every encounter he had had with Loqi, but _this_ was making it impossible to think, let alone to act according to rationality. 

After a moment in the silence that turned darker with each second that passed, Cor leaned down again and rested his forehead to the top of Loqi’s head.  
_I had no idea. Please, stay._  
“Your men are looking for you” Cor whispered instead. “You should go.”  
_But it’s absurd to say goodbye when we just said hello._  
“…yes” Loqi replied instead, eyes closed and moving the head up again so it was his forehead against Cor’s instead of the top of his head. Loqi kept the eyes closed, as if focusing only in the moment. Cor couldn’t; he stared at him, with a million thoughts that were all shadowed just by those girly eyelashes, the stupidly pretty lips, his face, and his mere presence, so close to him. “I should.”

Instead of stepping back, Loqi came up on his tiptoes again, and pressed a much more tender kiss to Cor’s mouth, not expecting to be answered, and only wishing to give. It was very soft, and Cor felt tempted to seek for another one, but if he did that, both would be triggered and none of them would be able to stop whatever happened next. Aware of this fact as well, Loqi did nothing to pressure Cor into replying to the kiss, and he kept it soft, sweet and innocent, lingering on it before breaking it and going back full on his soles. After some hesitation, Loqi shyly toyed with his own lower lip between his teeth before looking up at Cor again.  
“…that was…” he cleared his throat. “…for helping me.”  
Cor blinked at him, a bit startled at first, and then offered a tiny and subtle smile. 

When Loqi stepped back, both let go of each other and only stood there. The general, however, then lifted a palm.  
“And this is…” he started saying louder back in his threatening voice. Cor tensed and for a moment his eyes squinted, as if prepared to receive the blow. Loqi’s hand hesitated, and then it moved to Cor’s face as if to slap him, but too slowly. Cor stayed still and, suddenly, he felt Loqi’s hand pat his cheek softly. Loqi was staring away, face slightly red, and hand softly resting on Cor’s cheek. “…and this is…a gentle reminder of what I’ll do to you if you ever dare to tell anyone about this. Understood?”  
“I trust in myself” Cor said, lowly. “Not sure about you.”  
“I can assure you not a word will come from my mouth, Leonis.”

Said that, Loqi moved away, taking his hand with him. Cor’s face followed for a moment as if hating the sudden loss and looking for that hand to come back, but he stopped himself and stood still. The Nif was looking at the older man to the eyes while he stepped backwards, before turning on his heels. He walked calmly, much less tense than the first time he attempted to leave, and opened the door like a normal person. He did stop there for a second, as if considering it and measuring the options at hand, but giving in to the rational and logical one rather than the one he desired, and exited without looking back. 

Cor stood in silence, looking at the door. He did nothing for a while, hearing the footsteps outside grow quieter with each step until he could not hear them anymore, but even then he continued to look at the door. He knew it was senseless and that he was behaving like a child growing fake hopes, but he was conscious that what he was waiting for was for Loqi to come back and open the door again.  
It did not happen. The Marshal took in a deep and quiet breath through the nose and very slowly let it out. He knew Loqi would not come back, but it was still a little disappointing. 

After some seconds in silence and after he realized that the young Niflheimian was not coming back, Cor finally noticed the little discomfort nearby his nape. Puzzled at the odd sensation on the back of his neck, he moved a hand up and looked for the source of the problem, and found something tucked between the collar of his shirt and his skin. 

He took the intruder and pulled it out, taking it with both hands and looking down at it.  
Cor felt a pinch in his heart and he could not help to feel warm inside when he saw the little cloth.

With a smile and a quiet sigh, Cor gently folded and left the emblem of House Tummelt on the bedside table, where he could look at it whenever he wished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are welcome and appreciated! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ


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